The concept of building automation comprises the following non-exhaustive list of installations:
Heating, cooling, aeration and air-conditioning plants, PA1 Installations for the supply of electrical energy, gas, water, steam, etc. PA1 Waste disposal installations (sewerage, garbage, waste gas, etc.) PA1 Safety installations (burglary, fire, glass, etc.), PA1 Conveying installations (elevators, escalators, etc.), PA1 Lighting installations and PA1 Installations for the opening of entrances/exits of buildings or of individual rooms, etc.
The concept of a technical operating plant comprises all the power current, hydraulic and pneumatic installations of an automation system of a building, including their control and answerback communication elements, but not including the actual control and answerback signals. The control and answerback communication elements are here sensors, e.g. temperature and/or pressure sensors, servo components for e.g. mixing valves and/or motors of pumps, compressors, blower-burners and aerators, or control elements comprising, for example, safety coils and answerback communication contacts.
The installation mentioned initially realizes mainly four functions.
1. Supervision: It comprises central messages (display, logging, alarms, etc.) signaling extraordinary installation states as well as maintenance messages to the operating personnel. PA0 2. Control: It comprises switching the installation or parts of the installation on and off as well as the resetting of desired values by means of programs or through manual intervention at an operator station. PA0 3. Optimizing the overall operation through optimal energy coordination of the individual parts of installations. The computing programs contained in the system make it possible to coordinate the various plants installed in a building by means of arithmetic or logical linking of state values of a building (temperature, humidity, rpm's, hours of operation etc.) and thus to optimize the operating costs. PA0 4. Support of the building management, e.g. through the monitoring of hours of operations, malfunction statistics, supervision of watchmen's rounds, admission control etc. PA0 great flexibility of the installation with respect to making changes and expanding the system, thanks to complete interchangeability of function modules which can be plugged in anywhere on a bus rail without consideration of its own function module type and without consideration of any function module type which may have been plugged in at the same location in the past, PA0 decreased likelihood for malfunctions in the installation thanks to the implementation of a transmission connection between control module and function module that is less subject to malfunctions, PA0 minimization of the number of conductors in the bus rail and therefore the possibility of using an optimally thin cable-bus connection between the bus rail and the control module, the latter being installed on the door of its control panel or control cabinet instead of directly on the bus rail, so that its operations and display elements are accessible directly from the outside without having to open that door, PA0 a reduction of the number of failure sources due to the fact that the start-up and testing of the installation in order to find any wiring errors is simplified, PA0 a reduction of planning costs in the preparation of wiring diagrams, wire transmission lists, etc., PA0 a high degree of installation and service friendliness, PA0 small space requirements and a high degree of utilization, PA0 conversion from analog values into digital values in a matter of seconds, lightening the load on the central computer within and/or without the control module, especially relief from all time-consuming conversion tasks and PA0 decreased number of wire harnesses put together in the field.
In the periodical "Landys & Gyr Mitteilungen", 26th year (1979) 1-79, pages 2 to 12, "Visonik-ZLT-System", P. Schneider and J. B. Lumpert, as well as in the brochure "Building Management Systems, Introduction to the Visogyr/Visonik System Family", Aug. 1987, order no. ZXGU 0100D, Landis & Gyr, CH 6301 Zug, Switzerland, a ZLT Building Automation System based central management technology for the realization of these requirements is described, making it possible to connect a central station via a multi-wire ring circuit by means of transmission technology to several sub-systems designated as sub-stations. All control and message devices of a sub-system are in this case located in one control cabinet or control panel.
In this known ZLT building automation system a bus rail is used. The structure of this bus rail is described in the patent GB-PS 2,014,367. This bus rail constitutes within the ZLT building automation system an electric bus connection between a control module and several function modules of one and the same sub-system and contains a plurality of parallel electric conductors insulated from each other, i.e. 33 conductors, for the parallel multibit transmission of addresses and digital values, each via a separate bus, as well as for the analog transmission of analog values and supply voltages. A conversion of the analog values into digital values takes place relatively slowly only in a first central computer within and/or outside the control module, so that the computer is occupied for a relatively long period of time with conversion tasks for this purpose. The positions in which the individual function modules are installed are provided with encoded addresses so that the individual function modules can be located only in very precise positions without hardware and/or software changes
The bus rail itself is of modular structure and consists of a plurality of connection plates which can be electrically plugged into each other laterally with their narrow-edged long sides abutting each other so as to form a long, flat bus rail. For this purpose each of the narrow-edge long sides facing each other of each connection plate is provided with a female and/or male connector, each of which has as many connection contacts as there are parallel electric conductors in the bus rail. When the connection plates are plugged together, the plugged connectors connect parallel electrical conductors which are contained in every connection plate electrically to corresponding conductors of the adjoining connection plate. One large-surface side of each connection plate is provided with female connectors in which at least one control module or function module, all of which are provided with male connectors, can be plugged in. The flat bus rail is in turn mounted on or snapped on to a support. Furthermore, it can be provided continuously with at least one connecting cable and (divided into parallel bus rails) can be installed on several planes within the control closet or control panel. The function modules aer thus plugged into connectors which are connected to other connector elements which in turn are connected via wire connection to control terminals which are installed at one border, for example at the lower border, inside the control cabinet so that the connection between the function modules and the technical operating installations must always be via these control terminals (see also FIG. 32), requiring much expensive terminal and wiring assembly
It is the object of the instant invention to change the known ZLT building automation system while improving its advantages as much as possible in such manner that an even more universal ZLT building automation system may be created, in which wiring, terminals, connection and assembly costs within the control cabinet or control panel are reduced to a minimum and in which no expensive jumper wiring is necessary since the connections of the technical operating plant are not connected to isolated terminals but directly to base terminals of the function modules in order to realize great economies in money and in time.